Iran’s foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif told a closed parliamentary hearing that Iran would not allow cameras into any of its nuclear sites, the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, reported today.

Zarif told the parliament that Tehran is not going to permit online cameras for inspection purposes, said the lawmaker.

Imenabadi made the remarks while talking to IRNA Tuesday morning after the end of the in-camera session in which Zarif briefed the parliament members on the process of nuclear talks which led to Swiss Statement last week.

President Barack Obama has said that the emerging nuclear deal would allow international inspectors “unprecedented access … to Iranian nuclear facilities.” The understandings reached in last week’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (.pdf) included “continuous surveillance” of Iran’s known centrifuge manufacturing and storage facilities, as well as its uranium mills.

Last Thursday, shortly after the understandings were announced, Zarif publicly disputed some of the terms of the deal as described by the White House.

In a recent interview with Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, Obama acknowledged that Iran “could object” to any inspections and that a means to address those objections would have to be found.

[Photo: Bundesministerium für Europa, Integration und Äusseres / Flickr ]